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Traveltime in Star Citizen


Fizzlefuse

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Hi guys,

The Noobifier put up this video on the 6th and I think it warrants some discussion.

What are your ideas on traveltime across the verse and what would you do when you have "downtime" ?
I couldn't find a topic about this, feel free to link to it/merge it if there is one.

I personally don't mind downtime while traveling. it gives a chance to plan things out, time for social interaction with the crew, maintenance on the ship and components., prepare for the next mission... that sort of thing. I imagine things like playing holo-chess like Chewie and the droids did.

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It would be a shame if we never get to use that basketball court on the javelin, or the air hockey table ;)

i can see the argument from people who might not have a lot of time to play, though. If it takes you 20 minutes just to get to your destination...

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Being that I am a big space geek I have an understanding of how big our actual universe really is. I feel that if travel times are too short it would ruin my immersion, and on the other side of the coin if they are too far it may bore some to the point of not playing. I just have to put my faith in the community that we will come to an agreed  resolution so we can all enjoy this most epic game the way it should be

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11 hours ago, Rocket Man said:

There was a poll/request for backer to submit ideas for "games" the crew would play for such situations.  I hope they do bring some of the good ideas into the game for us to have some fun.

I believe a lot of the time spent will be doing internal repairs, armor and weapon maintenance, inventory and planning routes, possibly self hygiene like taking a shower or getting a boost from eating and drinking, interacting with NPC's etc. Some of that could take upwards of an hour if you're on a large multicrew ship. Especially say an Idris because it has so many different things to do. Science, military, aviation, Intel, Cartography, Personal Hygiene, NPC relations, among more. 

 

There's at least one Idris per unit and I imagine that will be the most common way to re-position or travel with a unit, for the example above.

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When it comes to wait times there are many ways it can go.

On opposite ends of the spectrum you either end up with a very successful game like ark survival evolved because the wait and the work is worth the reward at the end (for certain people), or if done poorly you end up with a smaller niche game like elite dangerous, where the top rated review is literally complaining about the wait time from system to system. So yes this is a very legitimate concern and this alone can make or break this game. 

But the key thing is quite simple: If they make the game fun and the wait worth it, people will be willing to sit through all the waiting times, if it sucks or isn't rewarding, they will not. 

 

Or to simplify even FURTHER: CIG needs to make it feel like a game, not a job. No matter how grindy it actually is. 

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I think CIG has said at times that traveling across a starsystem unhindered would take roughly 20 minutes or so.

That said, they also implied that you will rarely do so as you'll either get interdicted by pirates or bountyhunters or perhaps even the UEE (if you're being up to no good 😉), or the nav computer pulls you out of quantum because something is in the way, which could be anything from a planetary body to a asteroid or a ship.

i imagine CIG has to find the right balance between immersion/realism and fun. I definitely feel a long trek should be worth the tine though.

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There's basically jump points everywhere. Sure you still have to get to them and also you can move through unexplored space.

But outside of Exploration I would be surprised if we get really long flight times. CIG just aren't going the all out hardcore path in most areas.

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I agree with you guys, this is definitely a fine line to draw.  If there is plenty to do during the long flight, then an hour travel time is not bad.  That is why I am in favor of the longer travel times in the anticipation that we will be using that time for conversations, planning, charting, repairing, upgrading, and even the fun stuff like games, eating, having a cold one with the mates, etc.  I say give us a reason to be doing things on the ship, and leave the potential to be pulled from Quantum travel and to scramble to battlestations. 

However, on the flip side, I can see short time travels.  But I do not want to just jump from point to point to point to travers the galaxy, that is too simple.

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The travel time is a crucial thing to get right. I am personally fine with longer travel times if there is something to do in the meantime. But I can see an argument for shorter travel times if you don't have much time to play.

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I don't play Elite:Dangerous anymore because of the boring, long, and manual travel times. I would just watch TV on my second monitor at first while I was trying to get somewhere, but finally realized that 90% of my interest was watching TV when I was playing unless I was in combat or a port and that I hated that. Players in Elite also voted for long travel times for "immersion" and a lot of players hate them. If I only have an hour or two to play, I don't want to spend a majority of it traveling somewhere so that I can team up with people with my own ship. 

 If CIG is going to make long travel times it's going to heavily affect player interest, so I hope they have some sort of limited AI that can handle basic travel- you click on a point to get to, the AI plans the shortest route and you can AFK while it goes there, just have to watch your computer to make sure you aren't getting pulled out by pirates or anything. I would complain a lot less about long travel times if I didn't have to micromanage the whole trip every time. 

 Long travel times will also heavily affect reinforcements for battle and I think CIG would want people nearby to be able to make it to a large fight but still leave time for quick ambushes to be successful. I hope that's what they balance around. 

 

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9 hours ago, Karmaslap said:

If CIG is going to make long travel times it's going to heavily affect player interest, so I hope they have some sort of limited AI that can handle basic travel- you click on a point to get to, the AI plans the shortest route and you can AFK while it goes there, just have to watch your computer to make sure you aren't getting pulled out by pirates or anything. I would complain a lot less about long travel times if I didn't have to micromanage the whole trip every time. 

From what I have learned so far is that CIG doesn't want systems that you can switch on and then go afk. The best example of this is how they explained the mining mechanics are going to work on the Orion, you're continually engaged and have to make decisions on the fly. I doubt that they'll just let us turn auto-pilot on and then go make a sandwich.

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Will there be an autopilot in ships traveling from Point A to Z that will allow me to get up and move around?

Chris Roberts: The answer is yes, we're already talking if you're in quantum drive you'll eventually have to move around your ship to fix whatever, a fuel rod that goes bad or there's a leak somewhere or a fuse breaks. So, we were talking about this before, we were discussing you pry should be able to set an autopilot like singular point distance. So not just for quantum drive but maybe even just traveling in normal like SCM or cruise speeds and then you can sort of leave the helm and walk around. Then of course if your ship is going to hit something whether it's in quantum drive or regular space mode, it would pull you out, it would basically stop sort of like one of those auto sensing brake systems.

Tony Zurovec: This kinda segues into the whole crew functionalities where not only can you go off and do something but you actually have a navigator, you can turn over control of the ship to him and basically give him some basic high level commands. In other words, I'm in convention travel I say go over there, it's five minutes of flight, I'm going to check on my cargo or I'm going to affect repairs in engineering because I just took some damage and I can give him some basic instructions. What do you do if we come under fire? Do you stop, do you basically try to quickly escape, do you take evasive maneuvers. This kind of goes back to what we were talking about on one of the previous segments to where you'll be able to control your crew but at a very high, very macro level. We're not going to turn it into this micromanagement game, but if you've actually made the investment, you've got another pilot, you've actually paid for somebody who's got a significant level of experience… then you're all the way back in engineering, it's going to take you 60 seconds to get to the bridge, he needs to do something to not make you a sitting duck for the pirates you just ran across.

CR: So the bottom line is, if it's just you solo, you do the autopilot. It's simple point A to point B, will stop you so you don't hit anything but if you have crew and you have some… tell him to take the helm and you go to the back to fix the engine, that crew can operate at a higher level like they can stop but evade fire or try to escape the area or do something while you're heading back to take the helm.

TZ: Which is interesting too cause that doesn't really involve any new coding on our side because we already got NPCs that know how to pilot spacecraft. So all we're really doing is giving you an interface to this technology that we've already set up for other things.

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I am hoping for a solid 20-30 minutes between systems. Long distance travel can't be near instantaneous, or it will mess with all sorts of things. However, the travel time needs to be punctuated with activities that will be engaging for players.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

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The amount of time needs to be just right.  It needs to be short enough to not have the game become a waiting game, but needs to be long enough to both scale the distances and allow gameplay while traveling.  Also, as I think of this now, longer travel times, as touched by @Karmaslap, affects reinforcement times.  But this is where I disagree with him, you want the reinforcements to take time, so that a battle plays out without instantaneous intrusion.  The pirates of the game are going to want enough time to strike, raid, plunder, and escape before authorities arrive.  Too short of the time, the pirates will never be able to have a successful raid.  The same goes for bounty hunting, spying, military combat, etc. 

Thinking about this for a couple days now, I think traveling between planets in the system should take between 20 minutes - 1 hour.  Maybe one hour to cross from opposite sides of a single system.  Obviously, moons around planets, like in our alpha Crusader map, it takes a minute or two.  20 minutes seems reasonable to leave the pilot seat, go to the back and address damage or electrical issues, cargo spills, armaments, etc. and then return before coming out of Quantum Drive; assuming no interference along the way. 

They hinted at the Jump points at various times, saying that they will be just long enough for data to load for the system you are heading to and to unload the system you are leaving.  But they also want Jump Points to be risky (when not navigated) and to take time to travel through based on its length from one system to another.  I think they were limiting to four or five minutes for these, which is a reasonable period of time to have to fly and navigate the jump.  I don't think they were going to have autopilot for these, but you will have a map of how (the path) to fly through.

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I go back to when I played Everquest 1, at release and the next few years.  The slow travel (compared to modern MMOs) made the game-world seem vastly bigger.  You adventured where you were in preference to traveling, because traveling was a risk while nearby stuff was more of a sure thing.  The risk of traveling is that you could die on the way, and even if you survived it was no guarantee that you'd find better [loot, experience, quests, groups, whatever you're looking for] than where you are now.

In later MMOs, the risk of traveling is reduced to the point where everyone goes to the same "best" place, and the developers are forced to instance it to keep the servers online.  Every non-best place is empty or nearly empty.  This is distinctly worse for the health of the game though, and it makes the world feel small.  That "small" feeling is a little bad in a MMORPG but its (imo) completely incompatible with a space MMO.  A space MMO absolutely needs to feel huge, and the cost of travel in time and risk needs to be high.  This also means that there needs to be content to do pretty much everywhere, so a lot rests on them being able to create a rich enough experience in every place you can find yourself.  The reason why I traveled in Everquest 1 is when I exhausted the local stuff to the point where the risk of travel seemed worth it.

There's another factor too: The availability of shortcuts that not everyone can use are much more valuable when travel costs are high.  In Everquest, only certain classes could bestow faster travel on others, and anyone not in those classes would pay for the privilege.  Or if the charge was too much, or if you can't find anyone available and willing to bestow fast travel in the first place, you might decide to go the slow way.  If these choices and fast travel services for hire don't become a thing in Star Citizen I will flat out say that Star Citizen will and has failed as a space MMO.  There absolutely must be a market in Star Citizen for people who have the fastest ships and know the fastest routes.

What I want is to have to stage myself in an area for days at a time.  If I'm fighting Vanduul then I'll travel for many hours to get to the front lines, and then I don't expect to leave for days or weeks.  20 minutes (for example) to get to the front lines is far too short, and means that I won't have to be committed to it very much at all.  Similarly 20 minutes to get to any spot with good profit to be made means that as soon as the word is out, every player in Star Citizen will be there.  High travel costs means that only people already local will be there, everyone further away will ignore news for that area and instead concentrate on news for profit-making in the areas that are close.  The latter is much much better for the health of the game.

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We need some locales, especially when you're venturing further from safe, UEE controlled space, to feel isolated.
If traveltimes are too short it just won't feel that way. Traveltime needs to be a consideration in every mission and planned for. As far as calling for reinforcements goes and how fast they'll get to you has more to do with how close you are to your friends.

You can't expect people to reach you in time if they are literally on the other side of UEE space. If you go explore some far away solar system and nobody is in that or any adjacent system, don't expect for help to arrive any time soon... unless you get lucky and someone was around to lend a hand.

In many MMOs the world, though big, is very compact. Countries, cities, dungeons etc. are all surprisingly, sometimes even unrealisticly close to eachother and it just takes a few minutes at best to get to the other side of the world, especially if you have things like ground or flying mounts.

In star citizen the maps are incredibly big, even if not at full Solar System scale.
The current 100 sextillion kilometers in the PU is nothing to sneeze at and only feels small because of the Quantum Drive being a fast travel mechanic that takes you there in less time... and there currently not being many points to QD to. If you'd tried flying to your locations at max 'cruise' speed it will take you a very long time.

Even the moons coming in 3.0 are incredibly large.

I reckon CIG will take a good look at quantum speed when entire solar systems start rolling out and might change these speeds if they find a need to do so.

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On 6/15/2017 at 0:59 PM, Karmaslap said:

I don't play Elite:Dangerous anymore because of the boring, long, and manual travel times. I would just watch TV on my second monitor at first while I was trying to get somewhere, but finally realized that 90% of my interest was watching TV when I was playing unless I was in combat or a port and that I hated that. Players in Elite also voted for long travel times for "immersion" and a lot of players hate them. If I only have an hour or two to play, I don't want to spend a majority of it traveling somewhere so that I can team up with people with my own ship. 

 If CIG is going to make long travel times it's going to heavily affect player interest, so I hope they have some sort of limited AI that can handle basic travel- you click on a point to get to, the AI plans the shortest route and you can AFK while it goes there, just have to watch your computer to make sure you aren't getting pulled out by pirates or anything. I would complain a lot less about long travel times if I didn't have to micromanage the whole trip every time. 

 Long travel times will also heavily affect reinforcements for battle and I think CIG would want people nearby to be able to make it to a large fight but still leave time for quick ambushes to be successful. I hope that's what they balance around. 

 

Elite also doesn't allow players to do other things within a given ship, either. Using any other game as a metric for how CIG should manage travel times is specious at best. In SC, hopefully, CIG will allow the pilot to be replaced during flight. This will allow players to manage cargo, play basket ball, perform sensor activities, run a Hospital, etc. What other game has this as anything other than a cut scene?

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14 minutes ago, Gremlich said:

Elite also doesn't allow players to do other things within a given ship, either. Using any other game as a metric for how CIG should manage travel times is specious at best. In SC, hopefully, CIG will allow the pilot to be replaced during flight. This will allow players to manage cargo, play basket ball, perform sensor activities, run a Hospital, etc. What other game has this as anything other than a cut scene?

If you're in a capital craft there is plenty to do. If you're in a fighter or small ship, how much cargo management can you do? little to none. There would be almost no things in-game to be doing for the smaller ships, which comprise most of the craft purchased so far. I don't see how a comparison to Elite is poor: you can't walk around your ship but you can  chart your journey, look up lists of available merchandise and ship equipment prices, chat with other players, or view and interact with other ships traveling past lightspeed on your screen. It's more than a cutscene and doesn't really help the fact that you are waiting for a long time to actually get to where you want to be to do what you want to be doing. It's another space sim and while it and SC are very different games there is a lot to be learned there. 

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The more I think about it, it isn't really travel time, its the depth of content, that is at issue.  There needs to always be stuff to keep you busy wherever you are, unless you just want a change of pace.  This would mean that long travel would be rare; an acceptable exception.  It would allow long travel times to be in the game.  If the game doesn't have depth of content and you have to keep moving long distances to find stuff to do, then long travel times become Elite Dangerous-like: boring.  If you do have stuff to do within a short travel time away, then travel becomes something you do for a change of pace only, and thus acceptable.

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On 6/21/2017 at 7:13 PM, Boildown said:

The more I think about it, it isn't really travel time, its the depth of content, that is at issue. 

This, frankly. Elite has its bonuses but is a game different in scope from SC or any other title. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm thinking that there are multiple metrics at play here. 

If you're cruising around a system at SCM speeds, its going to take literally days to go anywhere, even if you afterburner. This should be sufficient to make space feel 'big' when you're around a planet or in a asteroid field.

When you're transiting between planets however, I think the travel time shouldn't be too egregious. 20 minutes tops from one side of a solar system to the other. If you're staying in system, chances are that you've taken the opportunity to do your grunt work and random labor planetside (unless you're intending to do something dangerous and prohibited). Any longer and people will get bored. Working in a system should feel big, but still akin to just going out around your own city. Its familiar, takes some time to travel around, but is still easy to do.

Travelling between systems is a bit more difficult. I think a lot of the exploration minded folks want journeys to feel epic. Piloting for hours will be desired by some of the playerbase. Alternatively being stuck in a jump wormhole for more than 5-10 minutes risks being egregious and has seriously diminishing returns. However, when you pair a 10-20 minute transit across the starting solar system with 5-10 minutes of wormhole with another 10-20 minutes travel to a destination on the far side solar system, you get a trip duration of about 30-40 minutes. Stack refueling, scanning, and multiple system jumps on top of this and you can easily get the epic journeys desired by some without the crazy hassle others will see.

Perhaps unexplored jump points take more time to navigate as well? I think those are intended to be more difficult since you can't use a preprogrammed autopilot through there (I think they've said something like this a while back). If so, for those of us headed out to the bleeding edge of known space, we'll need qualified jump navigators who are champions of twitch piloting and a large reserve of time. 

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